Legal threats loom amid recounted races

ANSONIA / MADISON — The election is over, but the results are still coming in. Automatic recounts have been triggered in several house and senate races.

In the race for the 17th Senate District, Democrat Jorge Cabrera is losing to Incumbent Republican George Logan by just 65 votes. It’s a race mired in controversy.

Election night put Democrat Jorge Cabrera ahead by 187 votes. He was declared the winner — until. Chuck Pyne is the Campaign Manager for Inc. State Sen. George Burns, (R) 17th District. “I started to compare what we believed the votes were town by town with what the Secretary of the State’s office had posted and we found that there was a 200 plus vote difference coming out of Ansonia,” he said.

Pyne told Fox 61 the people they had canvassing the polls had different numbers. So on Thursday, they went to registrars office and found the ballot box ticker tape readouts were different from what the Secretary of the States Office had. “The issue was what got typed into the system at the Secretary of the State’s office wasn’t what was on those sheets. It appeared to me that it was just a couple of typos,” said Pyne.

But the state Democratic Party is threatening legal action as a rally was held in front of Ansonia City Hall to support Cabrera. “All I know is I woke up Wednesday morning like a lot of people believing I had won the race,” said Democratic Senate Candidate Jorge Cabrera. “The important thing here is making sure that all the votes are counted and making sure that every vote that was cast was recorded properly so we have to have all our options on the table.”

On this day votes were recounted in Derby. Ansonia will recount Tuesday. It’s not the only close race. Just 25 votes separate Incumbent Republican Noreen Kokoruda and Democrat John-Michael Parker in the race for the 101st House Seat. Peter Metz is the Republican Registrar of Voters in Madison. “We’re hoping that the recount will confirm the court that was made at the polls.”

Votes were being recounted in Derby. Ballots were sorted into bins — ones that can go through the tabulator and ones that may need to be hand counted for accuracy. “We had one ballot that was torn. That might not go through the tabulator. That will be hand counted,” said Metz. He said sometimes voters put a check in the oval instead of filling it in. Fox 61 was in Durham Friday as the votes were recounted following the mislabeling of ballots made it seem like votes were missing.

There are two other automatic recounts.

One involving the Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz. Those will be recounted tomorrow.